ROBUST project: Kick-off

ROBUST Kick-off: How can we strengthen the resilience of beech forests towards climate change?

Our new project "Forests in Transition: The Future of the European Beech during Drought Stress (ROBUST)" has officially started with a kick-off meeting and an excursion to the research site Collmberg/Saxony. A good opportunity to test the thermal imaging equipment!

Climate change with increasing droughts requires measures to strengthen the resilience of our forests. This also applies to the copper beech as an important deciduous tree species in Germany. Significant damage to the trees can already be observed, particularly in older beech stands. Targeted thinning of the stands, i.e. removing some trees in a targeted manner so that the remaining trees have to compete less for water, could be a way to increase the vitality of the beech trees. The aim of ROBUST is therefore to quantify the effects of different thinning on water supply, vitality, biomass development and carbon storage of old beech trees. The aim is to lay the scientific foundations for the development of silvicultural strategies to establish mixed beech forests that are resilient to climate change.

The project will be funded by the Eva Mayr-Stihl Foundation from 2026 to 2029 with a total of 1.6 million euros. Several chairs of TUD`s Forest and Geo Sciences as well as Dr. Sandra Liebal's Junior Research Group for Forest-related Environmental Communication collaborate in ROBUST.

Further information can be found here.